The D-Backs have acquired reliever Carlos Vargas from the Guardians, tweets Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. Minor league pitcher Ross Carver has been dealt to Cleveland in return. Cleveland has since formally announced the move.
Vargas, 23, missed the first three-plus months of the season finishing off his rehab from a Tommy John procedure he underwent in April 2021. He’s yet to make his big league debut, and the Guards optioned him to Double-A Akron upon reinstating him from the 60-day IL this summer. The hard-throwing righty struggled through 24 1/3 innings there, pitching to a 4.81 ERA with an unsightly 21-to-12 K/BB ratio.
Cleveland still bumped Vargas to Triple-A for the final few weeks of the season, and the results were night-and-day. Vargas carved up Triple-A opposition to the tune of a 0.90 ERA in 10 innings. After fanning just 19.3% of his opponents in Double-A, he punched out a ridiculous 39% (16 of 41) of the opponents he faced in Triple-A. Scouting reports on Vargas will praise an upper-90s heater that can reach triple digits and an inconsistent slider that has the potential to be a plus offering if all breaks right.
Carver, also 23, split his time between High-A and Double-A in 2022, faring quite well in the former (3.10 ERA, 81 1/3 innings) but getting absolutely tattooed with the latter (9.50 ERA, 38 innings). The former 20th-round pick gives Cleveland a recent draftee (2021, 20th round) with a starter’s repertoire they can hope to develop through through one of the game’s top pitching development factories.
Broadly speaking, however, the move was primarily about opening a 40-man roster spot the Guardians, while the D-backs — in more need of bullpen help than Cleveland — will roll the dice on a power arm with spotty command and some recent injury troubles.
MLBTR Writers are typing away like savages tonight WoooOOooo!!!! Keep up the good work fellas!
Disappointed as a Cleveland fan to lose Vargas. Kid has a big time arm coming back from TJ last year. I thought he had a lot of potential.
Cy, I know I should think “Shane” automatically when I see your screen name but all I think is “Justin.”
Are the Guardians related to the Commanders? Guardians & Commanders? Sounds like the Gov’t is watching & commanding over us…My love for sports is shrinking…
Pay more attention to the individuals and less about the nicknames. You’ll enjoy it more.
“Nicknames”? My love for posters is also shrinking…
Correct. What else would you call a Red Sox or a Ranger. They’re the nicknames for the professional sports team in a particular city.
Red Sox could be “Red Stockings” and Rangers could be “Marshalls.”
Red Sox nickname is “Red Stockings”
Ranger nickname would be “Washington Senators”
LOL, had to do a little research
No no no, you missed what I meant. Red Sox, Red Stockings, Senators, Rangers, Marshals, Tigers, Bears,….they’re all nicknames.
I’d much rather focus my attention on Jose, Bieber, McKenzie, Tito, Kwan than I would Gaurdians vs. Indians.
Bye Felicia
this carver kid, has prettier peripherals. Not always, the meat potatos of the matter. i see your point though. IE salazar et cetera.
I’m very surprised by this move. Usually the Guardians don’t give up on pitchers this quickly.
I remember this guy. Your opinion, better as starter or reliever?
He is not a starter. Reliever all day.
Definitely a reliever. I thought he looked pretty good in the short time he was in the show. I thought he was first in line for a bullpen call up next year. If it were not for Clase, I would have thought they were grooming him for a closer role.
I’m pretty surprised the Guardians gave up on Vargas. He’s got electric stuff, and he’s probably done as a starter for health reasons but he could be pretty nasty in the bullpen. But they have a major roster crunch, so they can’t keep everyone.
I’ll have to look more into Ross Carver, but his high A numbers looked really good before getting bombed in AA. The Guardians will always get the benefit of the doubt from me when it comes to young starting pitchers.
Cleveland obviously (as all teams tonight) had to clear a roster spot.
It’s a long shot, but Brent Strom has another arm to work with.
I’m disappointed they’re giving up on Vargas. A prospect site just did a write up detailing how he has one of the nastiest sliders in the minors. You would think that + a near 100 MPH fastball would be an automatic backend stud. Unfortunately he has 30 grade control of the fastball, which makes it really easy to simply lay off the slider because he can’t reliably hit the fastball in the right spots.
The Guardians in general highly value control/command, so seeing them give up on him is probably a sign that he’s really not going to make it. They’ve been wrong before, but I’ve seen them give up on multiple prospects who threw near 100 and they’ve been right just about every time (Austin Adams, Kyle Dowdy)
Shawn Armstrong too. He’s hung around for a few years but he didn’t really turn into anyone they missed out on.
Vargas was I’m sure tough for the team to trade away…but it looks like they needed to clear the slot to protect Tim Herrin. He is a big lefty who can also hit 99-100 on the gun. Lefty relievers who throw that hard are tough to come by and he surely would have been lost had we not cleared a slot. We all remember the x-factor Andrew Miller was in our last March to a World Series as a dominant lefty out of the pen.